Crop materials, such as straw, hay or other like forage, or animal bedding, are often baled for storage and transportation. In some instances, it is necessary to break the bale apart in order to spread the crop material for animal bedding or to dispense the crop material as feed.
A machine to disintegrate bales of crop material is sometimes known as a baled crop material processor. A typical machine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,292 which issued to Frey on May 16, 1989. A baled crop material processor basically comprises a container for receiving the bales, a disintegrator often in the form of a roller with cutters or flails for chopping or shredding the material from the bale, a mechanism including manipulator rollers to direct the bale to the disintegrator and a discharge slot such that the crop material is discharged from the bail processor. Any number of manipulator rollers are possible, however, the disintegrator is located between and below two of the manipulator rollers. The baled crop material is supported and rotated by the rollers. As the crop material bale rotates the disintegrator breaks apart the outer portion of the baled crop material first and then proceeds to break apart the crop material towards the centre of the bale until the crop material is completely broken apart. As the baled crop material is disintegrated, the loose crop material is driven by the flails to be discharged from the machine through the discharge slot. Usually, it is desired to use the discharged crop material as feed in the form of windrows or in feed bunks, or then again to use the discharged crop material as animal bedding which requires that it be scattered.
Often, the problem is to be able to control the discharge of the crop material for these different purposes in a machine. Known crop material processors often include a discharge door that must be partially dismantled to adjust the discharge of the crop material for forming windrows, for discharging into feed bunks or for scattering as animal bedding. This adjustment of the discharge door is not easy to use and therefore is a time consuming and strenuous work for the operator, particularly if he is working alone.